Wolf In Winter
by Kay Taylor
Summary: BillRemus. In which a message is sent to the Ashdown Forest, and the messenger finds himself snowed under.


Bill knows that Remus is a werewolf - it's hard not to, when he's all that Ron talked about for a whole summer. Bill was in London for the whole of August, and he visited the Burrow as often as he could, mindful of the fact that his brothers were growing up without him. Ron is past fourteen now, and he favours Bill's half of the Weasley genes - he's tall and awkward and out of proportion, and his hands are clumsy as he makes the tea, sitting cross-legged at the kitchen table.   
  
Bill smiled at him, because it certainly didn't feel too long ago that all Mum could say was - Watch out, you'll break it,' - whenever he came home from Hogwarts. And Ron's words were awkward too, as he stumbled over himself telling the story of the Defence against the Dark Arts teacher, with his satchel tied together with string and his tired grey eyes.  
  
All Bill could think, when he'd finished, was - _how very brave._  
  
Because he knows about childhood friends, and childhood promises, and how terribly _hard_ it is to go back to where they began.  
  
You should have seen him against the Boggart, Ron said with admiration, his long fingers curled around the mug, and Bill noticed absent-mindedly that the sweater he's wearing is several sizes too big. Bloody brilliant. As if he does things like that all the time.  
  
Bill nodded. He probably does. Because what's a bad memory, or a bad place, but your own Boggart in the cupboard?  
  
He builds up a picture of a man with dusty brown hair, with shadows under his eyes, and robes that are so worn and old-looking that he could be a Weasley. Ron claims that Professor Lupin can almost tell what you're thinking, but Bill guesses that's the tale of someone who's been caught passing notes in class. Ron also claims that he's strong, stronger than you'd ever guess from looking at him - _he looks as though one good hex would finish him off_ - and Bill believes this. Werewolves are strong, he knows that, though he's never seen one on a Full Moon. Some tombs have werewolves as their guardians, or the ghosts of werewolves, and he's been to several places where catching sight of the flash of silver fur between the trees could mean an extra few moments of life.  
  
Strength. It must take the most amazing strength to live with _that_ hanging over you, Bill thinks. Wolf inside man. Man inside wolf.  
  
The worst kinds of wolf are hairy on the inside,' went the peasant proverb, and only the wizards knew that it wasn't necessarily just a quaint metaphor. Never so hungry as a wolf in winter,' goes the other saying, and Remus knows how true this is. He loves the season, loves to feel the snow going right to his bones, how chill and _sharp_ the air is, and the wolf can smell the forest miles and miles away, pine needles on the biting wind. But something twists inside, and he's ravenous, no matter how much he eats.  
  
Part of him thinks that it might be because Sirius has left for the winter, after the owl flew in over breakfast and dropped Dumbledore's summons into Sirius's coffee. They'd both been laughing too hard to work out what it really meant; but Remus could tell that Harry was in trouble, and he knew that Sirius would be gone within the day, without so much as a backwards glance.   
  
There was never much food in the house to start off with, but they'd made do; Sirius complaining about the lack of clean plates, and coming up with endlessly inventive meals with whatever was left in the cupboards.  
  
But now, looking at the kitchen, Remus realises that he doesn't want to eat a thing. Hungry for _weeks_ now, and it's all he can do to dip the quill in the inkwell and start to write, the tip scritch-scratching across the parchment. He tells himself that he's not watching the road, where it winds away into the Ashdown in a single black thread against the stark white. And when someone does come down the road, it's not who he expects at all - too young, for one thing.  
  
He's not hungry - but _ravenous_ - though he offers tea and biscuits to Dumbledore's messenger. The biscuits are only slightly soft, and the man sitting on the sofa dips them in his tea until that doesn't matter anyway, which makes Remus smile.  
  
Red hair, and blue eyes. That way tall people have of trying to make themselves look smaller, as if they don't want to take up too much space. Bill sits with his legs folded under him, the seams on his jeans faded white with sun and sand. He's obviously a Weasley, Remus can tell from the second he steps into the room. That certain way of smiling, easy, open. Remus almost wishes he could do that - it would make it so much easier for people to trust him, if he didn't have to look so fucking _guarded_ all the time. To lay his expressions on his face, like Bill does. But he learnt a long time ago that a smile looks too much like a grin, when you know what he is - parted lips, white teeth, _wolf_.  
  
That's how it begins, anyway._  
  
We used to come on trips to Ashdown, when we were younger. Especially in autumn. Charlie used to stuff leaves down my shirt, and Mum complained that we'd both catch cold. She was right, of course - it only took one of us to get ill, and the other would follow in a matter of days._  
  
The windows are covered with ice, so it's like looking through the bottom of a milk bottle, where the swirls of the glass blur the colours together - although there aren't many colours, not really. The white of the snow fades into the grey of the sky, the black road leads away between the black trees. And it's quiet, but that's what Remus loves about it.  
  
Though not as much as he loves to hear Bill talking. _  
  
There was a tree in the middle of the forest, too, and I'm sure I could find it again. It was the perfect size and shape for a tree house, though we couldn't use magic to build it, so the nails wouldn't stay in. I suppose it sounds funny, really - every time we came back, expecting to find it there, and every time it was a heap of planks on the ground, and a rope tied to the first branch._  
  
Though not as much as he wants Bill to stay.  
  
Bill's heard that Remus is a werewolf, and he lives in the heart of Ashdown Forest. He's also heard that you shouldn't trust a man whose eyebrows meet in the middle, but that's all right, because Remus's don't - in fact, there's nothing to give him away at all. And he surprises himself when he does stay, because he'd thought this was too soon after Charlie. _Just until the snow stops_, of course, and then a full day and a night after that. The devil is in the details, of course, because he can't actually remember how he persuaded Remus to let him stay; he only remembers that the man looked so sad and so tired, standing in the doorway as he waved Bill out into the snow. And the secret, half-hidden smile that suddenly flashed in his eyes when there was a knock on the door half an hour later, and it was Bill, all cold and wet, his face flushed from the wind._  
  
I found the tree house, what's left of it._  
  
Remus had let him sit by the fire, on the moth-eaten armchair with half the stuffing hanging out, and brought him whiskey to drink. Remus had sat on the floor, wincing a little as some of the tiredness uncoiled from his shoulders, and for a second Bill was struck with the strangeness of the situation - that he was sitting in a house in the middle of his childhood forest, with a registered werewolf all but curled up at his feet. But the feeling only lasted for a minute, and they'd stayed up talking well into the night, watching the snow fall silently outside._  
  
These woods are lovely, dark and deep,_ Bill thinks, though he can't remember who wrote it; or even if it makes sense, that he's getting slowly drunk and recalling snatches of schoolboy poetry, when Dumbledore is surely expecting him back. And he realises, half by firelight, half by the whiskey's heat, that Remus is a lot younger than he thought, and a hell of a lot younger than Ron described. He still looks like one good curse would finish him off - but that doesn't fool Bill, who's seen a werewolf bite to the bone even with a knife in its throat, who's seen centuries-old grim wolves rise up at a single touch on the door of their masters's resting places.  
  
Remus looks at him carefully, his eyes guarded. You know the snow isn't going to stop tonight, he says after a long pause. There's hunger written in every line and curve of his body.  
  
Bill nods. The forest is being used as part of an Unplottable zone, he knows that much. No Apparition. It's mostly for the benefit of Sirius, who appears to be long gone - though Remus has scarcely mentioned his name all night, and Bill wonders if there was a quarrel. I could probably set something up - to keep the snow off - he starts, but Remus just looks at him as though he's mad.   
  
I don't think you could Charm your way out of a paper bag right now, he says solemnly, and leans forward to top up his own glass, then Bill's. Hazel brown in the firelight, and Bill thinks, _werewolves are meant to have amber eyes,_ and finds himself meeting Remus's gaze a little too long.  
  
Brown, not amber. Calm. Remus has put his hand over Bill's to steady the glass, and he's warm.  
  
Bill smiles. If I didn't know better, I'd think you were trying to get me drunk, he says.  
  
Remus raises an eyebrow. What makes you think I'm not?_  
  
Ah, beautiful, beautiful_ - and Bill leans forwards, his heart hammering. Because you wouldn't need to, he says simply, and Remus's lips are as warm as his hands, as warm and soft as the glow of the fire in the tiny room.  
  
Remus has never been with anyone who isn't Sirius, and all of a sudden Bill seems too unfamiliar to be kissing him, too desperately _young_ and beautiful to be gently coaxing Remus's lips open, nudging against them. Too quick to be sliding his tongue into Remus's mouth, and certainly too sudden, too _unexpected_ to be making Remus make that noise in the back of his throat, leaning in to press his hand to Bill's chest, until he isn't sure whether he meant to push Bill away at all.  
  
It doesn't matter, anyway, because Bill doesn't leave. He kisses Remus until they both have to stop for air, and Remus can feel his heart thudding. You're drunk, he says, desperately wanting Bill to deny it. But he knows that he's been pouring Bill whiskey for nearly five hours, and drinking very little himself, and all he thought to give Bill to eat were the biscuits, the damp biscuits with his tea.   
  
And the thought of the biscuits is making Remus feel hungry, in the long firelit moment before Bill answers, though Remus suspect that, really, biscuits aren't all he's hungry for.   
  
There's a worn patch in the fabric of the armchair, just above the uneven wooden legs. And that patch is Sirius, because he returned late at night once, shivering and with snow settling into his black hair, his skin pale and clammy from being out in the woods at night.   
  
He had sat down in his favourite armchair, and pulled it as close to the fire as it would go, not saying a word, not looking around at Remus, just curling up on himself. And while Remus stood behind him, wondering what to do, the logs in the fire had shifted, and the sparks had burnt a great deep hole in the upholstery. Remus looks at that patch, the faded brown blending into the deep red cushions, and realises that Bill is sitting in Sirius's chair, and that he's drunk, and that he's just kissed him.   
  
You're drunk, Remus says again, feeling as though there's a leaden weight to his words.   
  
Bill smiles, and leans forward. So I am. You should have had more yourself, you know?  
  
And Remus remembers taking a sip from his first glass of whiskey, just after they'd shaken the snow from Bill's coat and hung it up behind the door, dripping wet and making little puddles on his flagstone floor. He knows why he stopped himself from drinking more; because he'd half-known that he was crazy with loneliness, a wolf in winter, and he didn't want Dumbledore's messenger -  
  
Bill kisses him again, deep enough for Remus to be able to taste the deep, lasting scent of whiskey on Bill's tongue.   
  
Maybe I should, Remus says, feeling the hunger roll over him in waves.  
  
And he does have more to drink, when Bill slides onto the floor beside him, sitting cross-legged and barefoot on the cold stone floor, with one arm around Remus's waist. It's Bill who's the first to drink straight from the bottle, wincing and shutting his eyes as he does so, then passing it to Remus. The bottle neck is sticky, and the cheap black lettering has been rubbed off onto Bill's fingers, as if he'd dipped his hands into the coal scuttle. Whiskey and wood-smoke and, far away outside, the faint tang of pine needles in the dark, and Remus wants nothing more than to lick the crook of Bill's neck, to see what he tastes like.   
  
But he knows better, and takes the bottle instead, feeling the whiskey burn the back of his throat.   
  
And Bill is grinning, and Remus thinks - _He's done this before_ - but somehow it doesn't matter, not when Bill's breath is hot on the side of Remus's neck and Bill's hands are over Remus's hands on the bottle, encouraging him to drink more.  
  
You're not even close to catching up with me, Bill complains, squinting a little as he tries to work out how much is left in the bottle. Do you get all your guests shamelessly drunk?  
  
No, but I might start making it a habit, Remus says seriously, taking the bottle from Bill's hands and putting it out of reach.  
  
Bill knows he's drunk, which is what gives him the courage to kiss Remus again; and this time, Remus acquiesces, leaning into the kiss and shutting his eyes. It seems so suddenly _serious_, so slow and deliberate, with Remus's hand cupping Bill's jaw, and everything around them turns to amber - the way the light catches off the remnants of the whiskey, the reflections of firelight on the flagstones, Remus's eyes when he finally opens them, clear and strong as honey.   
  
Bill thinks of honey, of the time he and Charlie tried to knock a wasp's nest out of a tree at the Burrow. They'd been too young to know the difference between wasps and bees, and they used Charlie's toy broom, and the wasps had swarmed out in their hundreds. And their Mum had scolded them and sent them to bed without any tea, but the next morning there had been an immense tray of toast dripping with clear golden honey, and Charlie's lips had surely been as sweet and warm as Remus's are now.  
  
Mmm - he says, and Should we?, but his voice is saying things he doesn't really want; he knows that he came in from the storm because Remus looked as lonely as he is, and he only found their treehouse because he wasn't really looking, and Remus's hands are under his shirt, now, and Bill gasps and leans backwards against the chair and allows Remus to slide the still-damp shirt up and over his head.  
  
Dumbledore's messenger still seems young to Remus, when there's not even five years between them. Nevertheless, Bill wasn't even able to walk when Remus was going through his first transformation - in a cage locked in his parents' wine cellar, with tears streaking his face and his fingers raw from trying to peel his own skin off. Remus is past grieving for what he is, but it makes Bill seem so young, so eager; not just that open smile, or that way of sitting (legs wide apart, arms behind his head, his entire body stretched out as though to say, _look, I have no dark corners_), but also the way he stands up, almost falling over his own feet, and takes Remus's hand.  
  
They're both drunk enough to find it hilarious when Bill leads Remus into first the kitchen, then the bathroom, and finally the broom cupboard before he finds the bedroom, tucked away under the slanting roof behind the front door. But neither of them are _too_ drunk, even though Bill is slurring his words and all Remus feels is warmth, and it feels very good to someone who's spent so long wrapped up in the Ashdown snows. It feels even better to sink down onto the bed, the bed with its tattered blankets and alarming slope towards one side, where the mattress has unsprung, and draw Bill down after him, all long red hair and flushed skin and deep, eager kisses.   
  
And when the kissing has gone on for what seems like hours, Bill raises his head and says, his voice whiskey-hoarse: I really should be going.  
  
It takes much longer to sink in than it should, because Remus can't square up Bill leaving with the way Bill is touching him, hands deftly working at the buttons of his shirt, patched and darned with spells and rough yarn. He can't reconcile the idea of _going_ with the way he's managed to wind his legs around Bill's, the way they're pressing together close enough for Remus to feel the play of muscles in Bill's thighs. But then it hits him, and he thinks _no, this wasn't what was meant to - _  
  
And he looks at Bill, who's grinning ear to ear.   
  
You should have seen the look on your face, Bill whispers, and buries his fact in Remus's neck.  
  
Then - why did you - Remus starts, unsure of whether he should be laughing or angry, angry at Bill's smiling easiness and the fact that he can make those jokes in the first place, that he can _leave_ -  
  
Bill shifts his hips, his mouth close enough to Remus's for him to be able to taste the whiskey on the air, luxuriously sharp and warm.   
  
And Remus realises that he can feel Bill's cock pressed against his thigh, warm and hard and unmistakeably _there_, pressed into the soft skin just below Remus's groin, and it feels like he could melt with the warmth.   
  
Because I needed to know if you wanted this, Bill says, and Remus only just has time to protest - _oh, I want - _before Bill's mouth is on him again, and his shirt's come off and Bill is tangling his fingers in his hair and pressing against him, and then grinding against him and Remus can feel the surface of his skin start to itch, smell the pine needles and the tang of snow on the air, hear the wind in the trees outside, and he thinks, _hungry as a wolf in winter, god so hungry - _  
  
He stops Bill with a hand on his shoulder. Bill. You know I'm -  
  
Bill nods, and starts trying to tear Remus out of his trousers. I know.  
  
Bill isn't really sure what he expected from a naked werewolf, but the scars weren't part of it, any of it; though he knows it's stupid to imagine you can tell what someone is on the inside by looking at the outside, he'd imagined Remus to be more... wolf. And he doesn't know what he meant by that, and he's not really sure that he cares that much, because under the criss-cross lines Remus's skin is warm, _though not as warm as Charlie's_, something tells him, the same voice that insisted _and you really should be used to scars by now_. But the voice passes, and all that's left is the faint sound of Remus gasping as Bill brushes his hand over his cock.  
  
Bill lies back, listening to the wind outside, and wraps his fingers around Remus, feeling the muscles in Remus's legs tense, then relax, and Remus is warm and heavy on top of him, and Bill puts his face into Remus's neck as he strokes his cock, hard and steady, until the feel of it in his hand is making his breath come as harsh as Remus's.  
  
Like this? he asks, and it's almost inaudible, and he doesn't even know if it's the right question to ask. But Remus looks up at him, brown eyes seeming dark in the dimly-lit room, and reaches to kiss him. Deep, slow and wet, running his tongue over Bill's lips until they're slick and moist and tasting of whiskey again, and he's thrusting slowly into Bill's hand, winding his hands into Bill's hair.   
  
Bill - he says. May I -  
  
And Bill doesn't even know what he's being asked any more, he just knows he wants to be touched. He doesn't know what Remus wants to do, but he knows - as sure as he knows that he's drunk, and in bed with a werewolf, and almost thrusting his hips into the air in anticipation - that he'll let him.  
  
He's still surprised - a little - when Remus slides down the bed, and then he realises. It's been a long time since Bill has felt this, the slow glide of a tongue over the tip of his cock, slightly too rough, slightly too hard, and absolutely maddening. _His tongue is rough - _he thinks, and tries to remember this, because he's never slept with a werewolf before, and this is one way it's different, though -_  
  
He looks as though one good hex would finish him off_, Ron had said, and as Remus opens his mouth, sliding Bill into him, making Bill almost arch his back right off the bed at the feeling of the wet warm smoothness, he can hear the wind battering at the shutters, the faint sound of rain on the roof. It's like being in a warm cocoon, safe from the storm, and for a brief moment Bill thinks about Charlie, and the attic, and the Burrow, before realising that he's thrusting too hard into Remus's mouth.  
  
Bill tries to slow his hips down, but Remus pulls away and murmurs, No, Bill, it's okay, before opening his mouth again, and Bill is transfixed by the sight of Remus's mouth, open and almost _obscenely_ wet, as it shapes itself around his cock and swallows.   
  
Bill starts to thrust again, trying to keep it shallow, because if there's one thing he and Ron agree on, it's that Remus looks tired.   
  
And hungry. And absolutely fucking _gorgeous_, though he doubts that Ron noticed it, because he never had the benefit of seeing the werewolf-in-shabby-clothes naked and panting and swallowing Bill's cock to the back of his throat. And it isn't too long before Bill is grabbing at the back of Remus's neck, and pressing him close, and Remus is working at him with his tongue, and Bill lies back in a half-drunk, half-asleep haze, feeling nothing but warmth and release.  
  
_  
  
Your tongue is rough. Well, not rough, but... different. I was licked by a Hippogriff once, and it's like... not like a Kneazle, but... I'm not making sense, am I? Well. You're gorgeous._  
  
Remus loves the way Bill is warm, and sprawled on his sheets in that delicious laziness that comes after sex, with his hair damp with sweat and the thick, tangled texture that comes from walking in the wind._  
  
It's nearly light, look. Just over there - behind that curtain - no, you're not looking in the right place. There._  
  
And Bill's voice isn't slurred any more, but quiet in the tiny room, as he strokes Remus's hair, runs a hand down his thigh, teases his cock with the tips of his fingers._  
  
Is it different - your tongue - because -_  
  
Remus shrugs, and tells Bill he doesn't know. Then gasps, and leans into Bill's hand, and suddenly his heart is pounding again, and there's a look on Bill's face -_  
  
It's hours yet before I'll be able to walk in that snow._  
  
And Bill stretches, spreading his legs. And smiles.  
  
Remus is gentle, but it doesn't disguise his immense strength. Bill feels him biting at the back of his neck, and for a moment it's deep enough to hurt, deep enough to make him catch his breath, and then it subsides. He doesn't have time to think about lycanthropy being a disease of the blood, doesn't have time to ask Remus to stop, because Remus's hands are parting his legs, and that rough tongue is laving between them them, running up Bill's thigh, and then Remus is using those warm hands to open him up, placing his tongue at Bill's entrance.  
  
The rain outside is stopping, and Bill thinks - _but I don't need to leave, just yet -_ as Remus kisses the back of his neck, slides two fingers into him, rough and a little too quick. And he curls them around, and Bill finds himself pressed face-down into the thin pillows, and it's so _good_, so terribly good, that he almost cries out.  
  
Later, though, he does cry out, when Remus takes him, and he wonders dazedly how on earth he could have thought that Remus looked tired, or weak, when he's thrusting hard enough to make Bill moan with pleasure on each stroke, hard enough to make Bill's breath almost sob in his throat. Remus fastens his teeth on the back of Bill's neck - not biting, but terribly possessive, terribly painful - and fucks him as though he's starving.  
  
Like a wolf in winter.  
  
Remus doesn't fall asleep, but Bill does, face-down in the pillows after giving Remus a sleepy smile that, Remus thinks, is almost heartbreaking in its innocence. You're going to get someone in a lot of trouble one day, he says quietly, and then realises that he'd never considered being that someone, the person who would get all Bill's smiles and blue eyes and quick, easy way of moving. He looks over to Bill, who is still wearing his socks; because shoes were easy to kick off and trousers were easy to yank down, none of them had even thought about things like socks. He realises that there are bite marks on Bill's neck that he doesn't even remember making, but none of them are bleeding, so Bill is safe, and he can feel the wolf inside starting to settle down; hunger slaked, deep and sleepy, curling around itself. No longer rolling under his skin like a terrible tingling, itching wave.  
  
The sun is glinting off the puddles when Bill leaves the next day; the rain has melted the snow, and the paths around Remus's cottage are slick with grey slush, running in little streams past the front door. The air still smells of pine needles, though, and Bill knows that he's going to think of Remus that Christmas, when he helps his father bundle the pine tree into the living-room of the Burrow. Pine needles, and snow, and the air is fresh.   
  
Bill turns around. Remus is standing in the front door, watching him quietly. He's holding a mug of tea, standing barefoot on the stone steps, and his eyes are calm; Bill remembers the night before, how they'd seemed amber in the firelight, and then dark in the bedroom, as he'd pressed Bill down into the blankets and made him cry out in pleasure until his voice was ragged._  
  
How's your voice?_ was the first thing that Remus had said to him the next morning, Bill remembers. He'd woken up to find tea, and Remus with sheets wrapped around his waist, reading the _Daily Prophet_. _  
  
Good,_ Bill had said. _Better._ And leaned across to catch Remus in a clumsy, almost-hungover embrace that turned into a kiss that turned into many kisses, and then turned into a warm, companionable silence. Tea. Warm on Remus's lips. And Bill had known that he wasn't staying.  
  
Tell Dumbledore yes, Remus says, in the quiet of the mid-morning, and it sounds like words in a foreign language until Bill remembers the message he'd come to bring, the message he'd stumbled through the snow all afternoon to give to Remus. Remus's lips quirk into a small, tired smile, and Bill can tell that Remus knows he'd forgotten about the message.  
  
I'm not a very good messenger, Bill says ruefully, and shades his eyes against the sun.   
  
I think you're a fantastic messenger, Remus says, and smiles. But Dumbledore is expecting you.  
  
Bill nods, and turns around. Take care of yourself, he says, thinking that Remus doesn't need to - now Bill knows how strong a fully-grown adult werewolf is, which is something few curse breakers have ever had to find out. And he takes the first few steps onto the path, the path which will lead him out of the Unplottable zone, away from Remus's cottage at the heart of Ashdown, past the treehouse and into the Muggle world.


End file.
